Our Story

Skippies was born in New York City out of the power of a beautiful friendship between Alex, Victor, and Quingao, as well as their shared passion for stylish, minimalist footwear. But the Skippies shoe model itself has a historical heritage that spans decades and continents. This shoe was created in Shanghai as an affordable option for everyday life in China. The sneaker itself is strong and durable, with a vulcanized Dafu rubber sole that can only be found in footwear produced by the skateboard experts at Vans. This led to the sneaker's explosive growth in popularity across China, and its adoption by the Chinese Olympic team in the 1980's.

Here's where the story gets interesting. Over the past five decades, hucksters and profiteers have benefitted from predatory contracts that use the Shanghai Dafu Rubber Factory's IP against them and undercut their ability to sell and distribute these sneakers abroad. In fact, they claim that these bad actors "took advantage of the Chinese at a time when China was still grappling with capitalism and transitioning from all factories being state-owned assets to devolving some rights to individual businesses."

The principal culprit is International LLC of Florida, who parachuted in at a time of vulnerability for the Shanghai Dafu Rubber Factory, and registered the original name of the shoe, Feiyue, for international use. This has boxed out the original Shanghai sneaker creators from benefitting from their shoes' popularity abroad during a time of massive economic growth.

At Skippies, we are tackling these dupes by offering the original Dafu rubber shoe, straight from the Shanghai Dafu Rubber Factory, and rebranded for international legal protection with the moniker "Brooklyn" and "The Bronx", inspired by our native New York boroughs. Our competitive prices are intended to unseat the fakes, who for too long have run amok in international markets at the Shanghai Dafu Rubber Factory's expense, and overcharged for the sneaker through duplicitous marketing and the twisted logic of Customer Price Perception.

As lovers of comfortable, stylish, minimalist footwear, and haters of coddled feet, yacht sneakers, clout chasers and injustice, we found Skippies as a way to uplift our love of great shoes while also fighting the man, ten toes down.